Township Awards New Phone Contract

The Chatham Township Committee unanimously voted 4-0 to award a contract for telelphone services to Hunter Technologies for $61,023.85 Thursday.

The contract approved Thursday covers only the equipment, installation and warranty. Service is covered under a separate contract and will cost the township about $1,400 per month, Ciccarone said.

The committee discussed this contract at two previous meetings, one in April and one in November 2011. Township Administrator Thomas E. for more than $63,000 in 2011 without approval of the committee.

At the time, Hunter was not approved as a state contract vendor. During the meeting Thursday he described the errors as "technical mistakes."

At the April meeting, Ciccarone said he now has documentation Hunter is an approved state vendor and recommended the committee approve the contract, and favored awarding a new contract to Hunter due to faults in the current system.

The township's current vendor is Data Network Solutions (DNS). At the April meeting, DNS President Isaac Fajerman said Ciccarone never called him to say service was unsatisfactory.

Ciccarone and Township Mayor Nicole Hagner commented on problems and shortcomings of the current service, including dropped calls and an inability to transfer between different municipal buildings such as the , the and the .

Fajerman said he recommended switching the township to FiOS, but never received a work order from Ciccarone authorizing the switch.

Hunter President Ivo Allen said his system could provide maximum redundancy for telephone service, especially in the field of emergency communications (in the event of a natural disaster similar to or the .) Also, he said Hunter's system is expandable to thousands of handsets and dozens of locations.

The April meeting ended with Hagner and the rest of the committee asking for input from other vendors as to what was the best option for the township's needs and what was a reasonable expense for the telephone system.

When the committee met Thursday, Ciccarone said he still favored awarding the contract to Hunter. Allen answered technical questions from the committee and agreed to lower the price of the contract from about $63,000 to about $61,000.

Allen also promised a three-year warranty on the hardware from Hunter and AVAYA with the first year at no charge.

Maintenance issues caused by human error or abuse, such as spilling coffee on a phone, is not included in the warranty.

Hagner and the committee agreed to approve the contract Thursday, but not to sign the contract until Township Attorney Carl Woodward had a chance to review the contract and make alterations based on Allen's comments.

The resolution awarding the contract was not listed on the original agenda released Monday.

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